In the News

December 20, 2012 — The Alaska Health Department has rejected a proposal to further restrict abortion coverage for low-income residents as part of new regulations for public health insurance programs, the AP/Fairbank Daily News-Minerreports (Bohrer, AP/Fairbank Daily News-Miner, 12/19).

Under the proposed rule, the state would have only covered abortions through Medicaid or Denali KidCare -- joint state-federal health insurance programs -- if a provider certified that the procedure was medically necessary. Current state law defines "medically necessary" abortions as those that address "a condition harmful to the woman's physical or psychological health." The proposal would have restricted the coverage to cases in which "the health of the mother is endangered by the pregnancy."

This summer, state Sen. Hollis French (D) in a letter to Alaska's health commissioner said the proposed regulations would reinstate rules overturned by the state Supreme Court in 2001. A legal opinion requested by French found that the medically necessary standard would be narrowed under the proposed regulation and would be "reasonably likely" to be found unconstitutional (Women's Health Policy Report, 9/24).

Alaska Health Commissioner Bill Streur said in August that the state health department did not intend to narrow the definition of medically necessary. Rather, the goal of the new regulations is to better determine whether abortion coverage should be paid for by the federal government or the state.

Video Round Up

An Interview with Justice Ginsburg on the State of Abortion Access

In a rare interview, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg tells MSNBC's Irin Carmon it is a "crying shame" that state abortion restrictions are making the procedure increasingly "[i]naccessible" to many low-income women. Watch the video

Datapoints

A Look at Abortion Coverage in the ACA's Marketplace Plans, Repro Health Report Card, More

This week's charts depict why abortion coverage is unavailable in many states' ACA marketplace plans for 2015. We also feature a national reproductive health report card and an interactive look at abortion restrictions in Missouri. Read more

At A Glance

"[Roe v. Wade] protects a woman's freedom to make her own choices about her body and her health, and reaffirms a fundamental American value: that government should not intrude in our most private and personal family matters."

— President Obama, commemorating the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Read more